Like this, the group reached a new place that was overrun with what seemed to be turtles made of Magma. The temperatures were very high and the turtles unlike conventional tortoises were quite fast runners. They had black spherical shells which they could roll with, long limbs and short necks. Their grey skin was covered with bright red cracks due to the high temperature of their bodies. They swiftly retracted their limbs and heads back into their shells when attacked; they were being attacked by some other humans. Mira’s IP denoted the ones in her view as [Rank 5 Hot Rock Tortoise].

In the distance, the ground rose up and spewed lava as a ginormous grey tortoise head shot out of it, the head was as big as a building. The head retracted back into its ground. A second later a giant black spherical shell shot out of the ground, lava and rocks trailing it.

Jake said to the group “Charlotte and I need to handle this. The rest of you should fight the monsters and rendezvous with the others they must be in here somewhere”. The members of the group answered simultaneously “Yes sir!”

Jake shouted in response “I told you not to call me sir!” and jumped away. Mira turned back to look at Charlotte, Charlotte’s body seemed to fade away into smoke until she wasn’t visible anymore.

The Tortoises around suddenly noticed the group after the two Original Vampires left and immediately they started spewing columns of lava at the group from their mouths.

The appearance of the group reduced the pressure on the other humans that were fighting. Mira side stepped a lava column, gathered balloon bubbles that had instances of Energy Burst in them under her feet and behind her waist and leapt toward one of the Hot Rock Tortoise.

The Tortoise was to slow and Mira’s palm met its neck, which had just stopped spewing lava, before it could retract it back into its shell. The throat of the Tortoise exploded from the inside and blue blood spewed from the tortoise’s mouth. Even with all that the tortoise wasn’t dead, Mira’s IP didn’t give her any notification and the tortoise retracted its neck into its shell.

A voice came from behind Mira saying “Go for the head, they have a very high regeneration” It was one of the humans. Mira’s IP denoted him as a [Rank 6 High Human].

In the time Mira was listening to the man, the Tortoise had jumped back a few meters and was in the air, its shell spinning. Mira was shocked ‘That’s quite a high agility for something so large. It’s just a Rank 5 there must be some sort of weakness it has in exchange for these advantages’.

By the time Mira finished her thought the Tortoise had hit the ground and was already rolling toward her at a very high speed. Mira swiftly lowered her center of gravity and performed a palm strike on the approaching Tortoises shell and applied her Energy Burst skill.

Mira was pushed some meters back while her palm remained on the constantly rotating shell constantly reusing Energy Burst. After sliding back for 15 meters Mira’s palm was covered in burns but the Tortoise was dead. Mira announced the weakness of the Tortoises “Their shells have not resistance to energy intrusion!”

The weakness of the Tortoises was their shell, it was hard and it was good at energy conduction. It helped the Tortoises absorb and release heat but that feature left them virtually naked to energy intrusion type attacks. Combined with their pitifully small energy zone, the Tortoises were cake to anyone with the right Martial Art.

After revealing the weakness of the Tortoises Mira thought ‘Wait do they even have the right type of Martial Art’. What Mira saw next amazed her.

In response to her reveal, some of the humans and vampires drew back while some stepped forward. Those who stepped forward stretched their hands forward and opened their palms and beams of auras of different colors shot from their palms and hit the Tortoises.

The Tortoises retracted their bodies into their shells and rolled toward the humans and vampires whether they were hit by the beams or not. Those that were hit by the beams stopped rolling after some seconds, dead.

Seeing the reaction the people continued with the aura beam approach while those who couldn’t use the beams focused on blocking the turtles. Mira joined the line of aura beam users and used her balloon bubbles to create Energy Burst beams.

Some minutes later, the Tortoises were dead. Everyone noticed the anomaly, only the Rank 5 turtles appeared. Mira asked her IP for her stats and it showed:

[Previous State:

Strength: High (low)

Agility: High (intermediate)

Stamina: High (low)

Durability: Intermediate (high)

Intelligence: High (low)

Senses: High (intermediate)

Energy: Intermediate (high)]

[Current State:

Strength: High (low)

Agility: High (intermediate)

Stamina: High (low)

Durability: Intermediate (high)

Intelligence: High (low)

Senses: High (intermediate)

Energy: Intermediate (high)

Soul: 415]

Mira directed her IP to put all her en-code into her Energy stat. She wanted to get Energy to Pinnacle rank since it was the cheapest to improve. Mira looked at the people beside her and saw that they were looking at something in the distance. Jake and Charlotte’s battle with the giant tortoise, which Mira could only assume was the creator of the spawns, had ended.

…

After seeing the giant spherical shell rolling out of the ground Jake knew he had to personally fight it. The Tortoise monsters were something his city had never fought before, they had extremely small energy zones so he was confident in beating them but he knew after the incident with the Basilisk that after the monsters died the spawns would still remain. He didn’t want to be too tired then so he called Charlotte to join him.

While Jake was in the air after jumping toward the giant Tortoise his daughter Charlotte appeared beside him. She had a blank expression on her face as she descended with him. Jake looked at her with a sad expression as he thought ‘Time will heal all wounds’.

The energy around Charlotte swirled and formed strange patterns around her as she cast a spell, the energy compressed and shot out in a beam toward the approaching shell of the Tortoise and hit it mid-air ‘Blood Magic: Blood Clot’.

The energy of the spell spread on the surface of the shell and dispersed; the shell had successfully blocked the spell. Jake covered his arm in black aura and combined the aura with aura of different colors and created a black aura rapier ‘Partial Aura Manifestation: Vengeance Rapier’.

The Tortoise shot out an orange plasma beam toward Jake and Charlotte but it was sucked into the Rapier. When the Tortoise, Jake and Charlotte landed, Jake’s IP denoted the Tortoise as a [Rank 12 Colossal Lava Tortoise].

The Tortoise spewed out green blood from its mouth as Jake thrust his Rapier. Before it could close its mouth a beam of Blood Magic entered its mouth and clotted the blood from its mouth down to its lungs which had been damaged after Jake’s thrust.

The Monster didn’t struggle to breath even thought its lungs were completely blocked but it couldn’t spew plasma from its mouth anymore. Its blood was made to withstand high temperatures so when it cloth it couldn’t burn it away immediately.

The natural instinct of the Lava Tortoise made it to swiftly return back to its shell and perform a rolling attack. But as if time had stopped it saw Jake’s left palm covered in aura of different colors. The colors swirled together and formed a curved golden dagger with red patterns on it ‘Partial Aura Manifestation: Bloodlust Dagger’.

In the blink of an eye Jake was on the Lava Tortoise’s head holding the dagger with the blade fully embedded in the skull of the Lava Tortoise. The Lava Tortoise felt its life being drained by the dagger as it moved its head back into its shell. The speed of its retraction had a sharp decrease in speed as its blood left its brain in favor of the dagger stuck in its head.

It died before it could fully retract its head as Jake smiled, gave a thumbs-up to Charlotte and said “Thanks for the assist”. Charlotte nodded without a change in expression and looked toward where the lower Ranks were fighting.

Jake turned his head to see what she was seeing and he saw the fighters shooting beams of aura from their hands at the approaching Tortoises. Jake chuckled and said “To think that something we learnt for fun would become so useful”.